The joy (and sheer terror) of adopting in your fifties
LIKE any new mother, Marilyn Mokni is run off her feet. Between joyfully chasing after her children on the beach near their home i n Barnstaple, Devon, and spending hours cooking, cleaning and doing the school run, she barely has a moment to think.
But Marilyn is no ordinary first-time mum — she’s 63 and her children, Camilla and Sam, are ten and eight.
The healthcare assistant and her husband Rochdi, 40, manager of a pharmaceutical company, adopted the siblings two years ago.
After 13 years of marriage and 30 years in healthcare, it wasn’t until her late 50s that Marilyn felt socially and financially secure, stable and resilient enough to look after children.
‘Before then, I just wasn’t interested,’ says Marilyn. ‘For years, I put my job first. I was selfish; I liked going on nice holidays, spending money on clothes and seeing friends. I was wrapped up in my own world.
‘It wasn’t until late that I realised something was missing and I might be able to offer children a good life.’
And Marilyn’s story is becoming ever more common.
The number of childless women has doubled in the past three decades, with nearly one in five now reaching the end of their childbearing years without becoming a mother. The reasons are manifold, but rising emphasis on careers, a decline in marriage and the higher cost of having children, as well as a greater social acceptance of being child-free, have pulled t he popular t i de away from motherhood.
As a result, more women are reaching their 50s and realising parenthood has passed them by, so look to adopt. Gemma Gordon- Johnson, head of service at First4Adoption, has noticed the shift.
‘A year ago, reforms were brought in to speed up the adoption system,’ she says. ‘Since then, it has opened up to more types of people.
‘Agencies can’t legally discriminate on age — there’s no upper age limit — and, nationally, we’ve seen a substantial increase in older people coming